Chapter 62
Someone just tried to kill him so I couldn’t blame him for letting his anger fill every crevasse of the room without making any effort to rain it in.
Every guest fought to stand still but they couldn’t control the wavy trembles of their hands or their necks desperate to bend down and submit.
Elise would never hurt him, I knew she wouldn’t and I wanted to scream that but I was as affected by the Lycan king’s anger as the others were. If not more. I felt him through the mate bond and I felt a burning itch on the skin around my mark.
The brown specks in his golden eyes shifted like fog on the silent town, moving over streets and setting the tone as they did in those old movies where the man with a gun slowly walked out toward his victim. The danger of fog is that you don’t see what dangers lurk in the open and all you can do is hope and pray that it isn’t your time.
But I saw in Elise’s eyes that she knew the danger lurking in the fog that was Darian’s eyes. I saw it because never in my life had I seen anyone so terrified of another person.
“I didn’t…” she coaxed out.
Darian leaned over her. Elise closed her tear-filled eyes when he tightened his hold.
“That’s not what I asked,” he said.
“Were you alone in the cellar when getting the wine?” He asked calmly.
I saw in the corner of my eye how Emanuel stepped an inch in front of Iliana.
What was Darian getting at? Iliana would never try to kill him.
“No,” Elise whispered.
No…
I looked back but quickly wished that I hadn’t. Iliana was hiding behind Emanuel, her brown eyes were big and round and I shook my head when I pieced together what Darian was doing.
He was the king, we were all in his palace and a key member of the council lay dead on his floor.
Elise couldn’t turn her head with Darian’s hand wrapped around her face but her eyes slowly flickered to the side and landed on Iliana.
No…this isn’t happening.
“Who else was there?” Darian ground his teeth and asked with the last straw of his patience.
In those twenty seconds before anyone else said a word, a whole lifetime managed to flash before my eyes. The unforgiving ways that our paths had crossed in this part of my life could have nothing to do with where we started. I saw Iliana running across the fields being chased by her cousin and her friends. They would always make fun of her for being smaller and nicer than your typical werewolf. The girls in our pack were unusually bitchy and nasty when it came to all things different from them but Iliana never cared. No matter how many times they chased her into the lake or she would hide high up in a tree in the woods and wait for them to go, she never stopped being kind.
7
Somehow her resilience and fate of heart were stronger than her fear of those who wanted her to conform to what was considered normal.
I’m not proud of it but I was the same as those girls, mean and vicious, but never in vain.
Iliana and I had talked in school and our parents were friends so we had playdates but rarely hung out outside of our planned time.
And then one day I saw her running into the woods, chased by four girls who were laughing and throwing pebbles after her.
My little sister was one at the time and my parents barely saw me after they brought her home, that built a rage I couldn’t explain and it needed an outlet- I knew it even as a kid, my tiny body couldn’t contain that much emotion.
1/2
Chapter 62
When I saw them chasing her, I saw my opportunity and I felt two meters tall with the build of an Alpha when I ran after them.
1 scared them away before they got to her by chasing them around with a brick in my hand- not my finest moment.
After that Iliana and I built a trap, a large hole in the ground that we covered with rope and leaves. The next time they chased her she made sure to jump over the covered hole and then she stopped, I walked around the tree and watched as they one by one fell into the pit and screamed from the dirt and debris. We found out afterward that they weren’t alone in there, they had the company of a snake.
We were inseparable after that and vowed to always look out for each other. She was the angel on my shoulder helping me to see the good in everyone and everything; I was the devil on her shoulder, helping her keep certain people at arm’s length and use her hands for nice jabs and not just hugs.
“Elise, who else was with you when you were in the cellar? Do not make me ask again,” He repeated. His voice was back to calm and controlled, a true tell of the monster surfacing.
I forced myself to look away from Iliana’s trembling lip and fear-stricken face and begged that Elise would see reason. But then she cried, tears rolled down her rouge-painted cheeks and she tried to shake her head. She paused for a beat, swallowing the sobs long enough to make herself heard.
“Iliana,” she cried.
The Alpha’s Hunt
